Prevalence and Trends in Global Retractions Explored Through a Topic Lens

TL;DR

This paper analyzes global retraction trends across scientific fields, revealing disproportionate growth in retractions, identifying high-risk topics, and providing insights for targeted research integrity policies.

Contribution

It introduces a topic-based analysis of retraction data, highlighting field-specific trends and offering a benchmark for scientific integrity assessment.

Findings

Retraction numbers are increasing faster than overall publications.

High retraction rates are concentrated in specific topics and fields.

Certain topics show a surge in publications alongside high retraction rates.

Abstract

Scientific publications form the cornerstone of innovation and have maintained a stable growth trend over the years. However, in recent years, there has been a significant surge in retractions, driven largely by the proliferation of low-quality and fraudulent papers. This study aims to examine retractions and their evolving trends through a topic lens. Our analysis of global retraction data reveals that the numbers of retraction have remained alarmingly high in recent years, with the growth rate of retracted papers significantly outpacing that of overall global publications. While retractions are observed across various fields, their distribution is not uniform. In disciplines characterized by high retraction rates, certain topics may only encounter minor issues, whereas in fields with lower retraction rates, some topics can experience substantial challenges. Moreover, an unexpected surge in publications has been observed in specific topics that also display abnormally high retraction rates. This study underscores several indicators that can assist the scientific community in pinpointing key fields that require rigorous scrutiny for potential low-quality and fraudulent research. Ultimately, our findings could serve as a benchmark for examining scientific integrity across diverse topics and offer crucial insights for developing tailored governance policies to enhance research integrity in each field.